“It really is irresponsible of the president to try to scare the markets,” said Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky. “If you don’t raise your debt ceiling, all you’re saying is, ‘We’re going to be balancing our budget.’ So if you put it in those terms, all these scary terms of, ‘Oh my goodness, the world’s going to end’ — if we balance the budget, the world’s going to end? Why don’t we spend what comes in?”

I rarely agree with Friedman, but I have to agree with this paragraph:

President Obama is leading. He is protecting the very rules that are the foundation of any healthy democracy. He is leading by not giving in to this blackmail, because if he did he would undermine the principle of majority rule that is the bedrock of our democracy. That system guarantees the minority the right to be heard and to run for office and become the majority, but it also ensures that once voters have spoken, and their representatives have voted — and, if legally challenged, the Supreme Court has also ruled in their favor — the majority decision holds sway. A minority of a minority, which has lost every democratic means to secure its agenda, has no right to now threaten to tank our economy if its demands are not met. If we do not preserve this system, nothing will ever be settled again in American politics. There would be nothing to prevent a future Democratic Congress from using the exact same blackmail to try to overturn a law enacted by their Republican rivals.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/op....html?src=recg

The Republicans have to clean their own house. They have allowed their lunatic fringe to set up a situation which no president could ever surrender to. The minority wants to unpin a fundamental strut of our government and kick it loose. If the president allows them to do it, he'll be excoriated by all future presidents. For the good of our way of government, he cannot not allow the lunatic fringe to succeed.

Representative Ted Yoho, a freshman Florida Republican who had no experience in elective office before this year, said the largest economy on earth should learn from his large-animal veterinary practice.

“Everybody talks about how destabilizing doing this will be on the markets,” he said. “And you’ll see that initially, but heck, I’ve seen that in my business. When you go through that, and you address the problem and you address your creditors and say, ‘Listen, we’re going to pay you. We’re just not going to pay you today, but we’re going to pay you with interest, and we will pay everybody that’s due money’ — if you did that, the world would say America is finally addressing their problem.”

Let's compare this to maybe a real life example. A young college student has a credit card. This student has maxed out their first card. In order to keep up with financial obligations, rent, car pmt, etc the student gets a second card and gets cash advances so they can "pay" the first card. Rather than cutting costs, paying down the credit card, the student is raising their own debt ceiling. Stupid!!!!!!!!!!!!

How can we possibly raise a little more money without taxing the American people to death? Just so happens the United States has 650,000,000 acres of public land. Most of that is out west. Just so happens much of this land is sitting over oil and gas.........Even if it's not over gas and oil surely there are people willing to buy some from US. Ah but it doesn't really work that way. The credit card machine is gobbling up more land. Nice to own your own printing press!

Meanwhile our government is scaring old people into believing they are going to lose their social security checks if we don't plunge ourselves into more debt.

Let's compare this to maybe a real life example. A young college student has a credit card. This student has maxed out their first card. In order to keep up with financial obligations, rent, car pmt, etc the student gets a second card and gets cash advances so they can "pay" the first card. Rather than cutting costs, paying down the credit card, the student is raising their own debt ceiling. Stupid!!!!!!!!!!!!

How can we possibly raise a little more money without taxing the American people to death? Just so happens the United States has 650,000,000 acres of public land. Most of that is out west. Just so happens much of this land is sitting over oil and gas.........Even if it's not over gas and oil surely there are people willing to buy some from US. Ah but it doesn't really work that way. The credit card machine is gobbling up more land. Nice to own your own printing press!

Meanwhile our government is scaring old people into believing they are going to lose their social security checks if we don't plunge ourselves into more debt.

Come on Ro....

you are obviously to much of a simpleton to understand the debt limit. its about paying the bills we have already built.

Wells Fargo Bank economist Scott Anderson has said of a default, “It would be an earth-shattering event. It’s taken as given that U.S. Treasuries are a safe asset. Once you question that assumption, it shakes the foundations of global finance and the way it’s been established over the last 50 years.”

University of California, Berkeley, economist Barry Eichengreen, a world-renowned expert on the international monetary system, warned that a debt default could lead to a run on the dollar if foreigners come to feel that the U.S. is being run by irresponsible leaders. As he put it:

“If there is a threat to the dollar, it stems not from monetary policy, but from the fiscal side. What is most likely to precipitate a dollar crash is evidence that U.S. budgets are not being made by responsible adults. A U.S. Congress engaged in political grandstanding might fail to raise the debt ceiling, triggering a technical default. Evidence that the inmates were running the asylum would almost certainly precipitate the wholesale liquidation of U.S. Treasury bonds by foreign investors.”

If you look at members’ actions and votes instead of their statements, the number of Republicans in the House who favor a clean CR and oppose the Cruz-driven strategy of shutdown and hostage-taking is not 21. It’s 0. The entire House Republican caucus is responsible for its shutdown-based legislative strategy. The only difference among the members is that Tea Party conservatives have the decency to admit what they’re up to.

The purge has worked, hasn’t it? There is effectively no Republican party any more. There is a radical movement to destroy the modern American state and eviscerate its institutions in favor of restoring a mythical, elysian, majority-white, nineteenth-century past. This crisis is proving that more powerfully than even watching Fox. We need to see what is in front of our nose: a cold civil war has broken out between those properly called conservatives, defending the credit of the government, empirical reality, and adjustments to modern life and those properly called radical reactionaries declaring our current elected president and Senate as illegitimate actors, bent on the destruction of America, and therefore necessitating total political warfare, even to the point of threatening to destroy the global economy.

What's funny (not really) is that Sully would've been (probably was) saying exactly the opposite 7 years ago, when it was Bush in the big boy chair, and not a single Democratic 'moderate' existed in the Senate.

The end result will be the same. Default isn't on the table. But nobody's going to sign up for President O's South Park Rochambeau gambit either.

The left's dream is to remove all economic restraint on their dreams and ambitions.

Enlightened Progressives should be free to vote for all the good stuff the United Trial Lawyers can imagineer without being distracted by all the petty annoyances of "unintended consequences" or "how to pay for it"

The right's dream is to let the wealthy and corporate interests **** us and the planet.

A couple of Kochs right up the chute.

This is a farty old canard. Corporate interests have a heavy hand in both major US parties. Who is pushing for amnesty? Business and unions in industries purged of Americans now serving illegal alien members for the most part. Ethnic and religious lobbies a far 2nd place.

Then of course you have a certain political party whose old white blue collar core jumped ship to the GOP in the 80s.

One of the nation’s top credit-rating agencies says that the U.S. Treasury Department is likely to continue paying interest on the government’s debt even if Congress fails to lift the limit on borrowing next week, preserving the nation’s sterling AAA credit rating.

In a memo being circulated on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Moody’s Investors Service offers “answers to frequently asked questions” about the government shutdown, now in its second week, and the federal debt limit. President Obama has said that, unless Congress acts to raise the $16.7 trillion limit by next Thursday, the nation will be at risk of default.

Not so, Moody’s says in the memo dated Oct. 7.

” We believe the government would continue to pay interest and principal on its debt even in the event that the debt limit is not raised, leaving its creditworthiness intact,” the memo says. “The debt limit restricts government expenditures to the amount of its incoming revenues; it does not prohibit the government from servicing its debt. There is no direct connection between the debt limit (actually the exhaustion of the Treasury’s extraordinary measures to raise funds) and a default.

The memo offers a starkly different view of the consequences of congressional inaction on the debt limit than is held by the White House, many policymakers and other financial analysts. During a press conference at the White House Tuesday, Obama said missing the Oct. 17 deadline would invite “economic chaos.”

The Moody’s memo goes on to argue that the situation is actually much less serious than in 2011, when the nation last faced a pitched battle over the debt limit.

“The budget deficit was considerably larger in 2011 than it is currently, so the magnitude of the necessary spending cuts needed after 17 October is lower now than it was then,” the memo says.

Treasury Department officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

I don't think it is a good idea but it seems sooner then later that kicking the can down the road is just helping us now but the stability of our nation and true economic stronghold will be gone. The sigh of relief when it is raised is for that instant but the problem continues on when the elected officials take the next breath.

The lunacy fringe might be those in congress now and those in the past.

One of the nation’s top credit-rating agencies says that the U.S. Treasury Department is likely to continue paying interest on the government’s debt even if Congress fails to lift the limit on borrowing next week, preserving the nation’s sterling AAA credit rating.

In a memo being circulated on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Moody’s Investors Service offers “answers to frequently asked questions” about the government shutdown, now in its second week, and the federal debt limit. President Obama has said that, unless Congress acts to raise the $16.7 trillion limit by next Thursday, the nation will be at risk of default.

Not so, Moody’s says in the memo dated Oct. 7.

” We believe the government would continue to pay interest and principal on its debt even in the event that the debt limit is not raised, leaving its creditworthiness intact,” the memo says. “The debt limit restricts government expenditures to the amount of its incoming revenues; it does not prohibit the government from servicing its debt. There is no direct connection between the debt limit (actually the exhaustion of the Treasury’s extraordinary measures to raise funds) and a default.

The memo offers a starkly different view of the consequences of congressional inaction on the debt limit than is held by the White House, many policymakers and other financial analysts. During a press conference at the White House Tuesday, Obama said missing the Oct. 17 deadline would invite “economic chaos.”

The Moody’s memo goes on to argue that the situation is actually much less serious than in 2011, when the nation last faced a pitched battle over the debt limit.

“The budget deficit was considerably larger in 2011 than it is currently, so the magnitude of the necessary spending cuts needed after 17 October is lower now than it was then,” the memo says.

Treasury Department officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

I guess the question is: why in the hell should dems concede to anything if defaulting isn't a big deal? obviously,rethugs think its a big deal,there strategy was to use it to extract concessions from the president.

I guess the question is: why in the hell should dems concede to anything if defaulting isn't a big deal? obviously,rethugs think its a big deal,there strategy was to use it to extract concessions from the president.

How is it that concessions are only a good thing if they come from the GOP and thuggery if the other way around?!

In a move that highlights a growing rift in conservative ranks, Koch Industries -- the privately held energy conglomerate owned by billionaires Charles and David Koch -- today distanced the firm from allied political groups lobbying to keep the government shut down unless Obamacare is defunded

A letter, signed by the company's chief lobbyist and sent to members of Congress, says that Koch Industries has taken no position on the shutdown dispute in Congress "nor have we lobbied on legislative provisions defending Obamacare."

Instead, Koch Industries wants Congress to focus on "balancing the budget" and "cutting government spending," among other goals, said Philip Ellender, Koch Industries president for government and public affairs.

The letter comes in the wake of media reports documenting how Freedom Partners -- a newly formed conservative trade association closely associated with the Koch brothers -- has helped finance many of the conservative and Tea Party groups that have been pressuring Republicans to link defunding Obamacare to the passage of a continuing resolution to fund the government and extend the debt ceiling.

It was also spurred by a floor speech by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday that blamed the Koch brothers for the government shutdown. The Kochs "have been raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get us to where we are right now," Reid said.

Over the past year, Freedom Partners -- whose board members include three current and former Koch employees -- has doled out over $235 million, including grants to Heritage Action for America, Americans for Prosperity, Tea Party Patriots, State Tea Party Express and other groups that have been pushing to defund the Affordable Care Act.
But privately, Koch officials have expressed concern to lawmakers that the prospect of a government default over the Obamacare issue would be a "disaster" for the economy, according to one GOP consultant who recently discussed the matter with Koch officials and asked for anonymity. Koch Industries associates note that the firm is widely diversified, including last month's $7.2 billion purchase of a company that makes connectors for Apple iPhones and other consumer products -- one of many markets that could be effected by spikes in credit resulting from a government default.